


a ghost in my lungs (it sighs in my sleep)

by callabang



Category: One Direction
Genre: Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Louis-centric, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4154700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/pseuds/callabang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes, when Harry is alone, he’ll stop what he’s doing - texting, fiddling with a ring, reading - and go still, like he thinks if he’s quiet enough Louis will emerge from his hiding spot and say hello."</p>
<p>Alternately, the one where Louis is a lonely ghost haunting the house on the hill, and the boys move in on a Tuesday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends,  
> I wrote this story for a few reasons:  
> 1) to fill the particular ghost!Louis void I personally felt existed in this fandom  
> 2) as an excuse to vomit pretentious prose all over the interweb  
> 3) to test out my writing in a public forum for the very first time (!!)
> 
> Please let me know what you think!! 
> 
> XO  
> Calla

They move in on a Tuesday, and at first it’s okay.

It’s early, and the air in the house is still. Louis sprawls on his back in the living room, carpet rasping the bare skin of his arms, fingers curling idly as he watches whisping particles of dust settle in the thin beam of sunlight that comes in from the windows. He’s hazy, consciousness drifting gently and lazily to fill the warm spaces near the ceiling, when the front door flies open with a bang. He startles, flinging himself back into existence, and goes to investigate.

He’s not thrilled, exactly, with what he finds, but he’s not overly upset about it either. Positioned in the front hall are three boys, all in varying states of rumpled exhaustion, all laden with duffels bags and backpacks. As Louis observes, hidden in the shadows of staircase, a fourth boy staggers in, blond and clumsy under the weight of the boxes in his arms. He deposits his burden at the foot of the stairs with a relieved groan and straightens, hand on hips.

“Well, we did it, lads!” he exclaims grandly, surveying the boxes and the bodies of his friends, strewn about on the floor. “A house and all! Like proper adults!”

Beside him, the boy with curly hair huffs a laugh. “Like proper adults. I don’t know if I’d go that far, Nialler. I think we need to provide our own furniture to get adult status.”

Louis imagines the house bare and empty, and then full again but strange and unfamiliar, a cycle repeated again and again as residents come and go. He is suddenly, fervently grateful for the worn wood of the chairs at the kitchen table, the thin scratchiness of the carpet in the living room, the thick, musty velvet of the curtains upstairs.

He blinks, and time skips forward. He’s used to it by now, the way he sometimes fades out, spreads thin through the wallpaper only to come back later on. He wonders, idly, where the boys are, if it’s been minutes or hours or days. They’re not in the hall anymore, and neither is the luggage. As he threads his way carefully through the house, he notices traces of them, a jumper over the back of the sofa, a mug on the dining room table. But then he finds the duffel bags, still largely unpacked, distributed throughout the bedrooms, and he knows it must not have been too long that he blinked out of awareness.

Louis eventually finds the boys in the upstairs rec room, sprawled across each other on the floor and staring raptly at the television as some movie with a lot of gunfire plays. He feels his lips quirk up, a small, strange gesture, and he retreats to the living room.

\---  
For the next week Louis watches curiously as the boys settle into the house. He observes them, how they interact; notes the way they laugh with each other, the casual touches, the obvious fondness. He learns their names. Niall, all blond hair and good nature; Zayn, dark and circumspect; Harry, gentle and smirking; Liam, wonderful and sure. They’re good friends, the best friends, and the house fills up in a way that it hasn’t for years. Sometimes, Louis thinks that maybe they might even know he’s there. It’s not often, not by a long shot, but occasionally Niall will trail off in the middle of a sentence as his eyes drift over the spot where Louis is perched, or Liam will whip his head around as Louis goes by like he caught a glimpse of him, just at the edge of his vision. Zayn once yelped in shock when he saw a flash of something behind him in the bathroom mirror, and sometimes, when Harry is alone, he’ll stop what he’s doing - texting, fiddling with a ring, reading - and go still, like he thinks if he’s quiet enough Louis will emerge from his hiding spot and say hello.

He won’t, of course, or maybe it’s more accurate to say he can’t - none of the occupants of the house have ever been able to see him. But there’s something nice about their awareness of him; it makes Louis feel real, somehow, more real than he has in years. He tries to reward them, sometimes, swiping a hand through Liam’s when he’s pouring too much milk into his tea, or applauding Zayn as he sings to himself, or clumsily adjusting Niall’s snapback on his head when he falls asleep on the couch. It doesn’t work, for the most part, but Louis like to pretend, takes comfort in the illusion.

Louis likes them, and at first everything is fine. Everything is good. The house is warm and full, and the boys seem happy enough. Louis can’t quite articulate what works about them; it doesn’t bother him, though, the way he thinks it might have before. There’s a lot he can’t articulate anymore. At the beginning, he was still so present, so himself. Now, the years have washed him out. Sometimes, when he’s laying in the bright warmth of the sun, spread thin in the light and swirling dust, he thinks that he wouldn’t be anything at all if it weren’t for the house. He’s tied to it, he knows, in some vague but vital way. He’s in tune with it, and it with him, but occasionally he wonders how long he can last, how much of himself he’s let absorb into the pipes and cupboards.

The boys decide to explore the attic.

They traipse up the steep wooden stairs like children playing at explorers, all exaggerated determination and very real curiosity.

“Maybe we’ll catch the ghost!” Niall whispers hopefully to Zayn.

Louis, perched lazily on the washing machine and enjoying the gentle rumble of the metal, doesn’t even notice until the cycle shuts off and the first floor grows altogether too quiet. He makes his way upstairs, and upstairs again, but even then he feels nothing more than a stirring of surprise; none of the house’s occupants have ever gone up to the attic before. It isn’t until he’s there, watching as they open boxes of old Christmas decorations and toy trains, that he feels the sharp spike of panic; it isn’t until Harry pulls a box from the farthest corner of the attic and deposits it, with a heavy thud, into the center of the room, that he feels the sudden rush of terror.

The boys settle themselves around the box, coated in dust except for the places at the sides where Harry had hoisted it up. Liam runs a hesitant hand over it, and the thick grey film parts to reveal writing, neat and careful, across its lid. LOUIS it reads, and underneath, smaller, the dates of his birth and death. They others are exchanging looks, all raised eyebrows and pointed glances, but Louis can only stare, paralyzed, at the dark writing of his name, at the dim memory of his sister printing it carefully, brow furrowed and grip clumsy on the thick marker, looking tearful and quiet and incredibly small.

Niall opens the box slowly, and the horrible wave of fear and sorrow and loss is just another addition to the long list of things Louis no longer has words for. It’s watching in a whirl of loneliness as his sisters filled the box, kissed the lid; the pangs of anger and grief as the car pulled out of driveway for the final time; it’s the mute, unknowable isolation of being close enough to touch and yet completely unable, of being packed up in a cardboard box and sent away to the attic, forgotten; it’s being a ghost in the house on the hill.

It’s like the beginning all over again, a frantic storm of emotion, and Louis wonders, almost hysterically, how he ever managed to let himself fade. How he was ever calm enough to sink into the warmth of the sunlight, into the texture of the house, when all of this, this violent swirl of fear and loneliness and unspeakable sadness, was packaged up in the attic, just two floors away.

The box is open. Its contents are laid out on the floor. It’s absurd, almost, how trivial they seem, how innocent. Just a mess of random, pointless things, things that he used to treasure, things that now make up the memory of everything he ever was. There’s a pair of football cleats, broken in and still scuffed with dry mud; a collection of pictures, a notebook full of half-finished songs and scrawled notes, a candle and program from the memorial service, a dried flower, now mostly crumbled to dust.

Louis is shaking, dizzy, struck down by the contents of the box. His blood roars in his ears. In front of him, the boys are staring down at the small - pathetic, Louis thinks - collection of things, looking suddenly unsure, hesitant, and very young.

“I don’t know if this was such a good idea,” Liam mutters. He rests his finger, lightly, on the lace of one cleat, retracting his hand quickly like he’s been burned. Zayn looks, quietly, at the candle, at the program, takes in the cold punch of the words at the top:

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Louis Tomlinson, beloved son, brother-

They look upset, shaken, and abruptly Louis feels all the sadness and isolation drain out of him, leaving behind only cold, unmistakable rage. How dare they, he thinks, like they’re gonna mourn some guy they don’t even know, how dare they sit here and fucking rifle through everything I was, living in my fucking house, what do they know about death, what entitlement, what selfishness -

Harry picks up the notebook, turns to the first page. The anger swells, clouds his vision and his thoughts, overwhelms him. He hears himself yell, the sound sudden and loud in the hush of attic. One of the bulbs, dim and dangling from the steeply sloped roof, shatters, glass spraying out and electricity sparking. Harry throws the notebook down with a startled cry, and the others race for the stairs, fleeing in a panic from Louis’s terrible rage.

He blinks, and time skips forward.

\---

When he finally feels himself flicker back into awareness, Louis is no longer in the attic. Instead, he’s curled in on himself under one of the beds, the space dark and warm. It’s a safe spot, and a familiar one, but even the closeness does nothing to soothe the residual sparks of terror he can feel viscerally in his chest. His breath hitches, and when he brings his hand up to swipe, clumsily, at his cheeks, his palm comes away wet.

He lays there, small and tired, for a long time, until all the rage and wildness has fallen away and left him drained. There’s a quietness sitting heavily in him, and he feels exhausted, worn out and raw. The house is dark and unnervingly silent, devoid of the usual sounds of plates clinking in the kitchen or the television blaring. The bed Louis has taken refuge under is in Liam’s room, but the door has remained closed.

He wonders, miserably, if he’s driven them off, if he’s always going to be just an invisible presence in the house, unnoticed and alone. Remembering the scene in the attic, his total loss of control, Louis can’t help but feel that it would serve him right.

When he emerges from under the comforter hours later, though, Liam’s things are still strewn about the room, so it seems that wherever the boys have fled to, it’s not meant to be a permanent relocation. Louis fits himself into the heating vent that overlooks the front hallway, fixes his eyes on the door, and waits.

They don’t return until many hours later, when the soft glow of twilight has faded fully from the room. The house is dark and cold, lonely without the boys. It’s been almost a full day. 

The door creaks open, a thin orange glow from the streetlights outside expanding on the threshold, and a hesitant head - Liam’s - pokes its way inside. Harry comes next, then Niall, then Zayn, stepping cautiously, nervously, as if they’re afraid.

Louis feels a sudden burst of self-loathing and shame, reminds himself that they have every right to be. 

Surprisingly, it’s Zayn who speaks first. 

“Ghost?” he calls hesitantly, a dark silhouette framed in the doorway and the pale orange light. “Are you… are you here?” 

Niall laughs, huffily, like he knows nothing about the situation is funny.

“We’re sorry!” Harry offers, blinking huge green eyes into the darkness of the staircase, of the living room, as if he’s expecting Louis to jump at them from the shadows. “We shouldn’t have gone through your stuff, especially when you’ve been so, ah…”

“Accommodating!” Liam chimes in. He’s smiling nervously, clearly unsure where he should be looking, clutching Zayn’s hand in a deathgrip. Harry shoots him a grateful look.

“Yeah accomodating. We’re sorry, is the point, and um, also that we would appreciate it if you didn’t… well, if you would refrain from-”

“Killing us in our sleep!” Liam says, voice high, and the look Harry gives him now is far from grateful. They stand in silence for several minutes, looking around as though they’re expecting some sort of answer. Louis takes the opportunity to drift down from the ceiling vent, sits himself down instead on the lowest step. He feels strange, and wishes, not for the first time, that he had died and moved on like a normal person.

“Also, um, Ghost, we want you to know that we’re not scared of you?” This, from Niall, and Louis can see by Liam’s continual panicked glances around the room and the tension in Zayn’s shoulders that it isn’t completely true. “I mean, like, what happened in the attic was scary, but you were always nice to us before that and we aren’t mad. We just don’t want you to hate us, or for you to think that we hate you.” And Louis is suddenly so immeasurably grateful he thinks he could burst. 

The others are still standing, unsure, like they don’t know yet if they have his permission, his - god, he thinks to himself - his forgiveness. 

“Ghost?” Zayn says again, breath quick, and Harry shakes his head, eyes lighting up with an idea.

“Louis?”

And suddenly Louis finds himself solidly, undeniably there.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya fam!  
> Thank you to everyone who read, kudos'd, bookmarked, or reviewed! Any feedback is much loved and appreciated. Here is the second installment of this little story, with part the third soon to come.  
> Big love,  
> Calla

It’s a strange feeling, being real. Louis reflects that he’s probably out of practice.

He’s still perched primly on the bottom stair, arms curled loosely around his middle, but now there’s something more. Everything seems louder, clearer, like there’s an extra layer of saturation and vibrancy that simply hadn’t existed before, like everything is suddenly more. He feels, really feels, the thick carpet under his toes, the cool, twisting metal of the bannister. It’s not like being alive, not at all, but it’s gloriously different from the mute haziness of before, and Louis feels full to bursting with a collection of emotions he can’t begin to name.

Niall yells. 

The sound is short but sharp; it breaks the quiet fullness of the moment, and Louis flinches back from it like it’s a physical force. Liam lets out a loud shriek, struggling briefly against Zayn until they both topple over and land with a thud on the carpet. Harry is pressed against the wall, eyes round and wide, while Niall’s face is completely devoid of color and he’s chewing on a nail, nervous. 

At least he’s stopped yelling, Louis thinks.

He curls into a smaller ball on the step, waves sheepishly at them from where he’s hunched over himself.

“Sorry, lads. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Liam and Zayn are still gaping at him from the floor, but Harry takes a hesitant step forward.

“Are you Louis, then?”

It’s nice, to be called by your name. Louis had forgotten that. He sits up straight, shoulders thrown back, and offers a wide smile.

“Yeah, that’s me. Louis ‘the Tommo’ Tomlinson, I was known in my youth.” 

Harry laughs, softly, like he isn’t sure he’s allowed. Niall seems to relax, hand coming down away from his mouth as his shoulders lose their tension. Liam and Zayn begin untangling themselves on the floor.

“In your youth? You can’t possibly be that old.”

Everyone else freezes, probably concerned that such a statement might set him off. Louis stubbornly refuses to let it.

“You’re one to talk, curly, you’re practically an infant.” 

Harry raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Whatever you say, shorty.”

Louis lets out an outraged gasp, hurls himself to his feet. He does it with slightly more energy than intended, to be fair, but he can’t help the twinge of hurt in his chest when Harry takes a staggering half-step back. He doesn’t move any closer, but he wants to. 

“Shorty! I’m hurt, Harold, I really am.” 

Harry shrugs, unapologetically. “My name’s not Harold.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “I know that, obviously. You’ve been here two weeks, you think I haven’t at least learned your names? That’d just be lazy of me.”

Zayn and Liam have sorted themselves out and are hovering, half curious and half anxious, at Harry’s shoulders. 

“So you’ve been spying on us, have you?” Niall asks, grinning. “Ghosting around, peeping through keyholes, all that?”

“Oh, yeah,” Louis says grandly, “and I know all about what you get up to in the bedroom, you minx.”

This declaration, along with Niall’s laughter, seems to break the ice. 

“I knew I saw something in the bathroom mirror that time!” Zayn exclaims, and Niall pets him consolingly. “And here we all thought you’d just overdone with the paint fumes.”

Liam is still staring at him. “When I’m making tea-”

“You fuck it up,” Louis finishes, agreeably, ignoring Liam’s sputtered protest in favor of flopping himself backwards onto the steps. It’s less comfortable, now that he’s corporeal. A lot of his favorite hiding spots will be, he realizes. He thinks it’s a fair trade. 

Harry watches him, consideringly. He folds himself down abruptly until he’s crouched on the stairs, perched primly next to Louis’s messy sprawl. His hair is escaping from the scarf he’s got wrapped haphazardly around his head, tendrils curling down to frame his face. Tentatively, Louis reaches up to touch. He feels the immensity of the movement in his ribs, in his mouth.

His fingers don’t connect. 

The moment passes, and Louis lets his head thunk back. He stares past Harry, takes in the way the light from outside plays across the ceiling. Zayn and Liam and Niall are still bickering good-naturedly, out of his line of sight.

“We are sorry, you know,” Harry says, quietly. “About what happened in the attic.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, even quieter, “yeah, me too.”

\---

The strangest thing isn’t that Louis, who has just spent nearly a decade invisible and unnoticed by the various residents of his house, suddenly has four people making conversation and laughing at his jokes. It isn’t that he’s perched on the window sill of the kitchen, watching with an expression of poorly-concealed amazement and disgust as they shovel Chinese take-out into their mouths. It isn’t even that his legs, swinging idly, pass cleanly through the table without so much as disrupting the plates. 

The strangest thing, Louis thinks, is that it doesn’t seem very strange at all. 

“We knew something was there, obviously,” Niall says. His mouth is full and Louis is fascinated. “I mean, you can tell when there’s a whole other person living in your house, even if you were invisible.”

“You didn’t notice for ages!” Liam exclaims, which sparks a brief but heated bout of indignant bickering that lasts until Zayn pipes up.

“I could kind of feel it when you would touch me, too. I’d get goosebumps.”

Louis stops mid-swing. “What, really?”

Zayn nods. “Yeah, like sometimes I’d see you in the corner of my eye, but other times I knew you were there because it’d get sort of tingly.” Curious, Louis hovers a hesitant hand over the Liam's arm. Liam nods, thoughtfully, and Louis tries to make contact. He can’t feel anything, and his hand passes straight through both Liam’s arm and the table..

"Yeah, tingly. It's much less noticeable now that I can see you touching me, though. Less weird."

“Hmm,” is all Louis says, and resumes his swinging. 

Niall resumes, “At first, I kind of thought I was just going mad. But then Zayn mentioned that he had been noticing something off about the house, and eventually it came out that we all had been sort of experiencing the same thing. And so we all agreed that there was definitely something there-” 

“Someone,” Harry interjects.

“Someone there, and Harry is the one who suggested it might be a ghost, but we weren’t too bothered by it, to be honest.”

Louis laughs incredulously. “Your house is haunted by a restless spirit and you lot decide to just... go about your day?”

“Pretty much,” Zayn shrugs. “It’s not like you were bothering us any.”

“Yeah, actually we thought you were kind of sweet,” Harry continues. Louis feels his cheeks warm and hoped, fervently, that no one can tell. “Turning off the telly if we’d fallen asleep, and locking the front door if one of us forgot, and just sort of looking out for us in general, you know?”

“Plus,” Niall says, with the air of someone about to confess a closely-guarded secret, “the rent on this place is really cheap, and we definitely can’t afford to move.” Something seems to occur to Zayn.

“Is the rent so cheap because this place is haunted?” he asks curiously. “Have you been, I dunno, driving out the unworthy or something?”

“Rattling my chains and shrieking in the nights, you mean?” Louis laughs. “Nothing so glamorous. No one’s ever noticed me here, to be honest.” He means it jokingly, but it comes out a bit sad.

“How long have you been...um, here?” Liam asks. How long have you been dead, Louis thinks, and puts it firmly out of his head.

“Nearly ten years, I think. I don’t know for sure. Things can get a little blurry, sometimes.” 

Liam swallows, and Niall puts his fork down abruptly. 

“Ten years?” Harry asks. His voice, slow and deep, is almost faint. “And no one knew you were here?”

Louis shrugs and determinedly refuses to acknowledge the feeling in his chest. “Nope. It wasn’t so bad, though. The house sort of… keeps me.”

It is clear from everyone’s faces that they have no idea what Louis means, but no one asks for clarification. He isn’t sure he could explain himself if they did.

“So you’ve just been here, then? All this time?” Zayn asks quietly. 

“Yeah, I suppose,” Louis acknowledges uncomfortably. “But I wasn’t really here for all of it.”

They don’t understand, and Louis doesn’t have the words to describe the hazy place of nonexistence he sometimes drifts away to, the almost imperceptible line between being and not being. He can’t explain how he’s not always there, at least not all the time, that sometimes he’s not so much a person as a presence, faint and warm. 

\---

They catch on soon enough, though. Louis still fades out, not often but certainly more frequently than he’d like. It’s usually at night, he finds, when he’s alone and not paying attention, that he sinks into that drifting sort of headspace and misses chunks of time. The others notice how it grates on him, the constant, simmering fear that one day he’ll fade out completely, dissolve into the wallpaper and cease to be. They take it in turns to stay up with him, then, just talking or sitting, but keeping him engaged enough that he doesn’t drift.

Tonight he’s sat on the couch in the rec room, knees curled to his chest and whole body listing to lean against the armrest. Next to him, Harry is stretched out, the top of his head inches away from Louis’s thigh and his long legs dangling from the opposite end. 

He’d be more comfortable if he moved up, shifted his head to the space Louis is occupying. Neither of them would feel it, really, and then he could fit his whole body on the couch. But he knows that it bothers Louis, not being able to touch, so he doesn’t.

It’s late, and the blue flickering of the television fills the room. Harry bobs his legs idly, and the dark shadows of them flash crazily across the room. Louis doesn’t cast a shadow.

He can tell Harry is tired, more tired than he’s trying to let on, but Louis can feel the heavy quiet just at the edges of his mind and can’t quite bring himself to tell Harry to go to bed. Instead, he scrunches down into himself, drawing his knees more tightly up to his chest and resting his chin on them.

“Tell me a story,” he says, looking not at Harry but out through the window into the blackness of outside. “About you.”

Harry stills for a moment, cranes his neck to peer up at Louis through his mess of hair. 

“I used to work at a bakery.”

Louis snorts dismissively. “Something I don’t already know.”

Harry bites his lip, staring at the ceiling contemplatively. When he speaks, it’s slow, serious.

“I cried, after that time in the attic.”

Louis freezes, instantly. “Wh-what?”

“I cried,” Harry repeats, simply, like it’s nothing. “We all did, actually. We were up in the attic, and we found the box, and then there was a terrible noise and the light broke and we ran out of the house. And once we got to the street, I started crying, because I’d finally put together all the pieces. I guess before, I hadn’t really made the connection between there’s a ghost haunting our rental and if there’s a ghost it means someone’s died, you know? And when I started it set Niall off, and then it was pretty much a lost cause.”

“Oh,” Louis says quietly. A long time seems to pass, and he returns to watching the colors from the television dance along the walls. “Sorry, I guess.”

“It’s not something to be sorry for, Louis,” Harry answers. His eyes are tired and kind. Louis wants nothing more than to be able to touch him - his hair, the line of his cheek stained blue by the light of the telly.

“I like that,” Louis says instead. 

“Hm?”

“When you say my name. It’s nice. Makes me feel like a person, almost.”

“You are a person, Lou. As real as anyone.”

Louis isn’t convinced, but there’s something gratifying, something comforting, in the fact that Harry believes it. 

\---

Time goes on, as it does, but without the peculiar washing out Louis had spent so long getting used to before the boys. Instead, everything gets more vibrant, more real. It’s been two months, nearly, and he’s better at being present, at keeping himself from going small and retreating to the quiet places at the edges of the house like he used to. He’s happier than he can remember being in a long time, with these boys who see and hear and know and care about him. 

Which is, of course, when it falls thoroughly apart. 

It’s a Saturday, and so everyone is home except Niall, who works in the morning. Zayn is still asleep, as it’s not even noon yet, and Liam and Louis are in the kitchen. Louis has been insisting on teaching Liam the proper way to make tea, which Liam has been objecting to strenuously on the grounds that Louis cannot actually drink anything and therefore should keep his opinions to himself.

The doorbell rings, which Louis registers only dimly. It’s enough to distract him from Liam’s tea-making, though, which results in him pouring in too much milk and the whole cup having to be scrapped. They’re in the middle of bickering over whose fault it was when Harry walks. He’s holding the mail, one letter already opened. 

He looks very pale.

“What’s happened?” Louis demands immediately. “What’s wrong?”

Harry shakes his head minutely but doesn’t protest when Liam rips the envelope from his hands. Louis watches frantically and wishes for the umpteenth time that he could grab it for himself.

“Well, it’s not ideal, but it’s not that bad, Harry,” Liam starts. “I don’t understand why you’re so-”

“Liam.” Harry says. His voice is like gravel. “Louis can’t come.”

Liam stills, eyes widening, and curses magnificently.

“What the fuck is going on!?” Louis exclaims. His heart is going too fast in his chest, and he can feel the panic cut through him like a knife. Wordlessly, Liam holds out the letter. Louis scans through several paragraphs of legal jargon, until he gets to the line that’s going to ruin everything for him.

_-regret to inform you that your lease has been terminated. You have ten days to vacate the premises._

He staggers backwards, head swimming. Harry is holding his hands out, trying to placate, to sooth, but Louis can hardly see through the rush of panic. He turns and races from the kitchen, ignoring Liam and Harry’s frantic calls, and gets small, in the way he hasn’t in months. He fits himself down until there’s no room for fear or anxiety, presses himself into safe and close and warm. He closes his eyes, gives himself over to the quiet and the calm. The last thing he hears before goes is the boys, below, calling his name.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who gave this work their time and attention! I sincerely hope that you all enjoy the final installment of my little story, and that you may find it in yourself to comment and let me know what you think.
> 
> It's been a supremely sad journey so far, so I hope you will take comfort in the fact that this chapter includes both A HAPPY ENDING and LITTLE TO NO EXPLANATION AS TO HOW IT COMES ABOUT. Enjoy!  
> Calla
> 
> One additional and largely unnecessary note:  
> I hate writing dialogue with a deep and soul-burning passion, but hopefully you can't tell.

It’s dark for a long time. Awareness comes back like pins and needles, a hazy tingling through his whole body. Louis wonders what day it is. He wonders if the boys have left. The thought sends a surge of terror through him, and suddenly he’s bursting from his hiding spot (in the drawer of Zayn’s nightstand, it turns out) and tripping down the stairs, fear and desperate hope alight in his chest.

He flings himself into the kitchen, where he finds everyone clustered around the table. He knows immediately it’s been at least two days - there are dark circles smudged under Liam’s eyes, and Niall’s nails are bitten down to the quick. When Louis enters, Harry stands so suddenly that his chair topples over, cracking loudly against the stove as it’s shoved back. 

“Louis,” Zayn says faintly, and Louis swallows heavily because even after all this time he still isn’t used to being called by his name. “Where...where were you?”

Louis shrugs, and the motion is small. He’s hunched over, arms pressed close about his ribs, trying to soothe himself unsuccessfully. “Tucked up in a drawer somewhere.”

Abruptly, Harry crouches, presses long fingers into his eyes. 

“We thought you were gone, mate,” Niall says shakily. “Scared the shit out of us.”

“Sorry,” Louis replies, cheeks alight with shame. “I didn’t mean to. I just… I read the letter and I couldn’t help myself.”

The pain in his chest is familiar. He remembers his family leaving for the last time, the car pulling out of the driveway. It feels something like that.

Beside him, Zayn breathes out shakily. “‘S fine, just...just don’t do it again. Promise?”

Louis nods, solemnly. “I won’t.” He only has a few days left; he’s not going to waste them.

Harry is still hunched over on the floor. Louis goes over, lowers himself carefully down next to him. Clumsily, he jerks out a hand, fingers going towards Louis’s chest. For one brief moment, Louis imagines them making contact, imagines Harry gathering the material of his t-shirt in his fist, pulling him in close. It doesn’t happen, though, and Harry lets out a frustrated noise and lets his hand fall.

“I won’t,” he whispers again. “I promise.”

They stay there, down on the smooth tile floor of the kitchen, and soon Niall and Zayn and Liam sit down as well, leaning back on the cabinets and table legs. Louis himself is cross-legged, sheltered in a corner with the boys before him.

“I think,” he says, slowly, because he isn’t sure about a lot of things and he wants to get this right, “I think we need to go back up to the attic.”

\---  
No one’s been up to the attic since The Incident, as Louis had been referring to it in his head. The lightbulb is still broken, shards of glass littering the floor. Liam cleans up the worst of it, but tiny flecks remain, glinting occasionally in the sunlight streaming in from the small windows at either end.

They pick their way carefully across the space, arranging themselves in a loose circle around the box and its contents, items still strewn haphazardly where they were dropped as the boys ran down the steps. Louis takes a deep breath, deliberately avoids examining anything too closely. 

They sit in silence for several minutes. Eventually, it’s Zayn who clears his throat and asks him if there’s anything he wants to say. 

“This wasn’t even our house,” Louis says, and it surprises him, the words slipping from his tongue almost involuntarily. “Or, it was, I guess, but most of the time we rented it out. We only came here for two weeks in the summer. It used to belong to my grandparents, I think. But I used to love it, because the yard was big enough to play footie and there were enough bedrooms that none of us had to share.” He trails off for a minute as the memories of that last summer, clear and vivid in his mind, threaten to overwhelm him.

“How many of you were there?” Harry asks, and Louis shoots him a grateful half-smile, unsure if he’d be able to get through the whole story on his own. 

“Four younger sisters and me, plus my mum and her boyfriend.”

Niall gives an appreciative whistle, and Louis laughs. It helps.

“And it was such a freak thing, when I died. I was driving, and there was a storm, and a tree branch fell and hit the car and I died. I don’t even remember it, really.”

It’s not true, not completely. He remembers the sound of the windshield wipers, and the way the rain sprayed off the road in a thick haze, and the red glare of his headlights on the pavement. He remembers the noise, a terrible groaning above him, and then nothing at all.

“Were you-” Liam starts, and seems to think better of it. “When did you wake up?”  
Louis gathers his knees up to his chest. “It was a while, I think. My family had already left to go back home.”

“They went home? Just like that?” Harry asked, brow creasing in distress.

Louis shrugs. “They didn’t know I was here. I mean, I hardly even knew I was here. It was all really hazy, at first. It took me a long time to work everything out.”

He’d spent a lot of time just being, in the beginning. He’d wake up alone and scared and confused, and he’d find somewhere safe and hide out there until he felt big enough to deal with it. 

“It wasn’t like in the movies, you know. I knew I was dead. But it was sort of like… I had to figure out how to exist again. And that, the remembering how to feel things and think about things without getting overwhelmed and going somewhere else, that took almost a year. And I still haven’t completely managed it.”

“A year,” Niall says, voice full of awe and something terribly like sadness, “and did your family come back?”

This, Louis remembers vividly. “Yeah, they did. I was in a vent, I think, and I heard the car in the drive, and I went as fast as I could to see them. No one had been in the house, the whole time, which was surprising because we’d always rented it out when we weren’t staying here. And my mum opened the door, and I was so excited to see them all. All I could think was that I’d missed them so much.

He trails off, feels his throat constrict. “But they couldn’t see me at all. I yelled for hours, I tried to throw things, anything I could think of to get their attention. But nothing worked.”

He takes a breath, feels it shake in his throat, and he scrubs a hand over his eyes. On either side of him, Harry and Liam shift over, closer to him.

“It was the anniversary, I realized that later. They only stayed for the day. Lottie, my oldest sister, she’d gotten everyone to bring my stuff from home. They were moving, I found out, and she’d insisted that they keep some of my things, but there wasn’t really room for it in the new flat. And I’d always liked this house better, anyway. So they made it into a sort of ceremony. My mum was in the kitchen, but Lottie and my other sisters, they...they filled up the box, and they brought it to the attic, and they said goodbye, and then they left. And the next week, they started renting it out again. But they haven’t been back since.”

He’s crying now, shoulders shaking and throat raw. He buries his face in his knees, refuses to look up at the others. He thinks they might be crying, too, but he doesn’t bother to check, too consumed by the grief cold in his chest. It’s a long time before anyone speaks.

“They’re selling the house,” Liam says eventually, carefully. “That’s why our lease has been terminated. They aren’t taking renters anymore.”

Louis’s head spins, Liam’s words sparking a whirl of conflicting emotions that he can’t even begin to work through: happiness that his family is moving on, betrayal that they’ve given up on him, fear at the thought of an empty house and an unknown family and Niall and Liam and Zayn and Harry moving on while he’s trapped here, alone and unseen. 

“Oh,” is all he says, and then stands gingerly. He doesn’t look at anyone. “I’m not disappearing, I promise, but I… I think I need to be alone.” 

He leaves the boys behind, walks down two flights of stairs, presses himself into the dark space under the coats in the coat closet. It’s the closest thing to comfort he can get without allowing himself to fade. He presses his arms around his middle, rubs at his arms where the skin is cool, left exposed by the short sleeves of his t-shirt. It’s not as soothing as he wants it to be, and he ends up more frustrated than anything. He tips his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

\---  
It’s not until hours later, after the sun has set and the whole house is dark and cool, that there’s a knock on the closet door. Louis emerges from among the coats and stands, stiffly. He feels sore all over, rubbed raw. Harry stands before him, looking profoundly sad. 

“I’m so sorry, Louis,” is all he says, and Louis hates pity but he understands that this is something else.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, and Harry’s mouth twists.

“I’m still sorry. And for what it's worth, I know you'll be okay.” It's worth a lot. Louis reaches out, strokes his fingers so closely along Harry’s jaw he can almost imagine they’re touching. He doesn’t bother to dissect the feelings behind the action; they don’t matter, not now. Not anymore. 

“Thanks, Haz,” is all Louis says. It'll have to be enough.

\---  
They leave, and it’s both distressingly similar and incalculably different from before. Louis watches as they pack, movements reluctant and slow, and doesn’t cry. They linger as long as they can, but the time comes eventually for them to leave.

“Maybe we could come back, sometime,” Liam starts to say, but Louis just shakes his head, tries not to feel bad when Liam’s face falls. 

“I think it’s better that you don’t,” he says, and the others nod in understanding.

“Okay, Louis,” Liam says softly, and then there’s the last goodbye, and the door shutting and the finality of the deadbolt turning in the door, and Louis keeps his promise, doesn’t allow himself to fade out or become anything less than real. 

Instead, he walks slowly around the house, padding from room to room and studying the spaces the boys had occupied, steadfastly ignoring the tears that prick his eyes each time he remembers that he won’t see them again. It feels at once hazy, an indescribable dream, and cripplingly, awfully real.

The next day, the door swings open, and Louis is bowled over for an instant with the insane hope that it’s them, but then he hears the beeping of a moving truck out front and the sharp heels of the realtor’s shoes clacking against the hardwood floors and he knows he was mistaken. 

Louis retreats, ducking into the rooms they’re not working on so he doesn’t have to watch them strip his home bare. It takes two days, and by the end of it Louis feels permanently off-kilter. He wanders around, examines the faded spots on the walls and floors where the carpets and pictures had staved off the fading rays of sunlight. Everything is gone- the scratchy rugs he used to sprawl across, the coats and linens in all the closets, all his old hiding spots cleared out. Even his box, he discovers when he finally musters the courage to climb up to the attic, is gone. 

This time, he reflects, tasting bitterness sharp on his tongue, there was no ceremony.

The house has already been sold, he learned from the realtor. The new owners have decided to renovate, but they're going to wait until the spring to start; something about it being too inconvenient to do repairs in the winter, Louis doesn't care. 

The movers lock the doors when they leave. The house is silent and bare. The rays of sunlight streaming in through the front windows seem to lack their usual warmth. Louis walks slowly to the middle of the now-empty living rooms, settles himself down cross-legged. Tears burn his eyes, and he finally allows himself to give in to them. 

It's so unfair, is all he can think. It's unfair, and he had just gotten used being real. He was real, he thinks, and then he's crying in earnest, shoulders heaving with sobs.

He had been doing alright, he thinks, before the boys came, just drifting, just being, but now they're gone and he can't even go back to how he was before. Everything is too raw, too foreign, all his safe spots gone, and soon the house will be renovated and no one will be able to see him and he'll be completely alone. 

The thought is what tips him over the edge. In a flurry of movement, he launches himself up, scrambles up and away until he's small and the storm of wild emotions seems far, far away. He's breaking his promise, he remembers with a full-body twinge of guilt, but by then he's reached the place where the world is quiet and calm and he doesn't have to think anything anymore.

\---  
Louis opens his eyes, which is surprising. He'd thought, in the last moments before it had gone dark, that maybe this time would be the last. He isn't sure whether to be relieved or terrified at the thought. 

He doesn't bother wondering how long it's been. It doesn't matter anymore. 

He uncurls himself slowly, gets big, and the feelings return like a punch to the chest. He takes a deep breath, steadies himself through it. He doesn't know if he can do this. There's a lot he doesn't know. He wonders if knowing, the kind of unshakeable surety that comes with believing something with everything you are, is a trait reserved for the living. Maybe Louis had always been missing it, just took a while to notice.

He keeps his eyes shut for a long time, reluctant to face the sight of the empty living room. Harry knows I can do it, he thinks, and smiles shakily despite himself. He squares his shoulders, opens his eyes.

It's not the living room. Not his living room, at any rate.

It's much smaller, for one, and the only furniture is a battered couch and a ringed coffee table. The floor is covered in worn carpeting, thin and threadbare. It's night, shadows stretching eerily up the walls, and Louis would be bewildered and frightened except he recognizes the stuff strewn about- Zayn's lighter, Liam's shoes, Niall's bracelets lined up on the coffee table, Harry's jumper. Louis is light-headed with the hope filling his lungs. 

He steps forward, hardly daring to believe this can be real. There's several doorways leading to other parts of the flat, and he's just reached the first one when he hears a creaking floorboard to the right of him. 

It's Harry, eyes wide. He's holding a bat out in front of him and Louis wants to laugh with the utter absurdity of it all.

"If there's someone there," he says hesitantly, "you should know we've got nothing worth stealing. Also, you should be very ashamed of yourself."

Louis clears his throat, and Harry whips around to look at him. Louis steps forward, into the light cast by the moon through the open window.

"Harry," he breathes, and Harry's eyes light up with understanding. 

"Louis," he says, and he steps forward, "You came home."

A sob rises in Louis's throat, one of happiness this time, and he doesn't stop to think before throwing himself into Harry's arms. 

The first thing he notices, after the shock of Harry actually holding him registers, is that Harry is warm, heat radiating out even through the layers of his shirt and jumper. Louis loves the warm.

Laughter bubbles up in him at the thought, and he grin through the wetness of the tears streaking his cheeks. The sound sets Harry off as well, and they're clutching each other and laughing and crying all at once when he hears Niall shout behind them and then there's another body pressed closed about him, all wiry arms and the smell of cedar.

"Zayn! Liam!" Niall hollers from their huddle, "Louis's home!"

And then they're both racing out to join them, Liam with pillow-creases still lining his face and Zayn heavy-eyed and stumbling, and there may be a lot Louis doesn't have the words for, doesn't understand, but he can't help but think that maybe it doesn't matter so much at all. He has Harry, and he has his boys, and together they'll be okay.

Louis knows it.


End file.
